Thursdays@3 by Palliative Care Australia

Welcome to Thursdays at 3 our regular series of conversations with people living and working at the end of life. Today’s conversation takes us to Tasmania to meet Rebecca Lyons – a mum, with a background in everything from finance to real estate but these day’s runs a family led home funeral service, called Solace . Bec says she is a person who has “always had death in her life”, which might help...

Here we go with Thursdays at 3 - our regular series of conversations with people living and working at the end of life. This time we meet, Sydney’s Jon San Martin, Jon wears a couple of hats, he’s a Clinical Nurse Consultant working in HammondCare’s Community Palliative Care Service, he is also part of the team at The Advance Project – one of the Federal Government’s National Palliative Care Proje...

This Thursday@3 we reflect on National Close the Gap Day as part of our regular series of conversations with people living and working at the end of life. This conversation takes us to Queensland with Woromi women and Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner Kathryn Hooper. Kat’s approach to reconciliation and delivering culturally appropriate care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is one...

Today, we go inside the Renal Supportive Care Team, part of the Canberra Health Service.   The team were a finalist in the National Palliative Care Awards last year, judges highlighting their collaboration with specialist palliative care teams in the ACT and neighbouring NSW.  The team and how they work is a great example of how the values and practises of palliative care can influe...

Welcome to Thursdays at 3 – conversations with people living and working at the end of life.  It’s always a privilege to share these stories with you, but this one especially.  Rachel Callander is Evie’s mum. Evie died with a rare condition on 10 October 2010, she was just 2 and half, but this little life has stirred a powerful force within her mum.  Click play to join the conversat...

A very real and personal conversation today exploring the impact of Huntington’s Disease, and what the palliative care sector needs to know – what we all need to know.  Kathy Langley’s family lives with the faulty gene that causes Huntington’s Disease and understands the disease all too well.  Kathy joins us from her home in regional Victoria, click play to join the conversation.  S...

February is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month – a chance for us to learn more and talk about a cancer that impacts around 1,800 women each year, and of all the cancers has the poorest survival rate.  Our guide is Hayley Russell, Senior Research Manager with Ovarian Cancer Australia and senior Bereavement Family Support Worker with Eastern Palliative Care in Victoria.  Click play a hear of t...

Welcome to the last Thursdays@3 episode of Season 2! Today, a deep dive into the Healthy End of Life Program HELP App of La Trobe University’s Public Health Palliative Care Unit. HELP’s mission is to develop a collaborative end-of-life culture to meet people’s health and social needs – tapping into the capacity of community networks to add weight to care of health professionals and meeting the nee...

Today we chat to Juliane Samara, a specialist palliative care Nurse Practitioner who works for Canberra Health Service as part of the Community Aged Care Service run out of Clare Holland House. In 2019 Juliane won the National Palliative Care “Emerging Leader” Award and the ACT Nursing and Midwifery Excellence in Clinical Practice Award. She has written for The Guardian Australia and on Twitter sh...

Today, a rock star of palliative care, Dr Hsien Seow! As the Research Chair in Palliative Care and Health System Innovation at McMaster University, Canada, Hsien is focused on innovating health systems and improving quality of care. He will be in Australia next month for the Oceanic Palliative Care Conference, his time in Sydney for 23OPCC also coincides with the release of his book  ‘Hope for the...

Today, we continue an earlier conversation with our friends at ELDAC – End of Life Directions for Aged Care. The Aged Care Royal Commission and the current reform agenda from the federal government makes it clear that older Australians need and deserve better end of life experiences. When we last spoke to ELDAC, we heard about the role that aged care providers need to play and the tools and suppor...

Welcome to Thursdays@3 our regular series of conversations with people living and working at the end of life. Earlier this year, Josphine Lokai graduated as a Registered Nurse from the University of Canberra. She currently works at Clare Holland House, a Specialist Palliative Care Service based in Canberra. She moved to Australia from Kenya in 2017 with a real fire in her heart and soul following...

Welcome to Thursdays at 3 our regular series of conversations with people living and working at the end of life. Spiritual care is such an integral component of palliative care – which is perhaps unique in the field of medicine and health care. Today, ahead of her workshop this September at the Oceanic Palliative Care Conference in Sydney, we chat to the CEO of the Spiritual Health Association – C...

Today we meet Professor Dorothy Keefe, who has been the CEO of Cancer Australia - the Australian Government’s cancer care agency, since 2019. Before that, Dorothy was Professor of Cancer Medicine at the University of Adelaide and a Senior Medical Oncologist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. In addition to her work as a medical oncologist. Dorothy is also an expert on the toxicity of cancer...

Today we meet Professor David Currow, who you might already know through his long career in cancer care and research and palliative care. David is currently a Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Wollongong. He is the former Chief Cancer Officer for New South Wales and former Chief Executive Officer of the Cancer Institute of NSW. Before that, he was the foundation Chief Executive Officer o...

Welcome to Thursdays at 3 our regular series of conversations with people living and working at the end of life. The Aged Care Royal Commission made 12 recommendations pointing to the need for palliative care and dementia care to be better understood and better integrated into aged care services. Today we hear from three people chipping away at that work through ELDAC – End of Life Directions for...

Exploring the culture of Australia’s First People is something we are always interested in, but especially so during NAIDOC Week – an annual celebration of the culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. Today, we do that through the work and wisdom of Tanya Quinn, an Aboriginal Health Worker in paediatric palliative care and chronic and complex needs at the Sydney Ch...

Welcome to Thursdays at 3 our regular series of conversations with people living and working at the end of life. Today, we hear from a doctor with over 30 years experience in palliative care – Dr Jo Doran! Jo currently works for the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service as a senior consultant and is also an Honorary Adjunct Assistant Professor at Bond University’s Faculty of Health Sciences and M...

Thursdays at 3 is back for another round of conversations with people living and working at the end of life. In this episode we hear from someone who has experienced both through the death of her husband Derek in 2019 and today as the CEO of a charity shaping family friendly end of life options. Derek died in August of 2019 after a 23-month battle with aggressive brain cancer – he was just one mon...

A special episode this Thursday (23 March) to mark Advance Care Planning Week. “Advance care planning is something that unfolds over a lifetime,” says Dr Will Cairns, a palliative medicine specialist with decades of experience. Will is currently Consultant Emeritus Palliative Medicine at Townsville University Hospital and Associate Professor, James Cook University. This Thursday@3 Will reflects on...

With over forty years’ experience in nursing our guest today, Rose Sexton has seen a thing or two! Her passion for palliative and end of life care emerged early, with active interest in Oncology nursing. She completed post graduate studies in palliative care in 2011 and currently works for Northeast Health in Wangaratta, Victoria, in community palliative care. Alongside these health-related passio...

In this episode we chat to the 2022 Nurse Practitioner of the Year no less – Peter Jenkin. Peter’s nursing career and commitment to palliative care starts well before last year’s award from the Australian College of Nurse Practitioners. For 11 years, and only up until recently he was a Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner for Resthaven aged care in South Australia. However, in early 2023, Peter move...

In this episode we drop in on regional NSW and the central west town of Orange, where one family’s experience with serious illness has led to a new online business that helps families gather and store memories, plan funeral arrangements and leave a final message for loved ones. Bec McLaurin’s professional background is in HR but time with her kids and an experience with family illness has led to ‘...

In this episode we meet Sallie Fredericks, a Registered Nurse who has worked in palliative care in the Illawarra region of NSW for over thirty years. For the last 10 years Sallie has worked exclusively in aged care as a Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Consultant and is currently a Nurse Educator for a local aged care service. Click play to hear from Sallie as she talks about the need to make pallia...

In this episode, we head to regional Queensland, dropping in on Fraser Coast Hospice a community run six bed purpose-built facility, south of Bundaberg at Hervey Bay; K'gari, formally known as Fraser Island, is not far away. As with any community led initiative, there is a lot of heart and soul that went into making Fraser Coast Hospice a reality, not to mention the heart and soul that makes up th...